Kennedy: Chappaquiddick haunted me 'every day of my life'

The late Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy -- mourned by millions, eulogized by President Obama, buried  in a place of honor next to his two slain brothers at Arlington Cemetery -- is getting the last word.

In a memoir titled "True Compass," to be published Sept. 14, Kennedy called his actions in the 1969 car crash that led to the death of his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne "inexcusable." When his car drove off the bridge, he wrote, he was afraid, overwhelmed and "made terrible decisions." The senator was charged with leaving the scene of an accident and given a two-month suspended sentence.

Writing at the end of his life, as he struggled against brain cancer, Kennedy concluded: "That night on Chappaquiddick Island ended in a horrible tragedy that haunts me every day of my life." Forced to live with the guilt over his failure to report the accident for hours, he acknowledged that Kopechne’s family suffered far worse. “Atonement is a process that never ends,” he wrote.

The excerpts are from the New York Times, which got an early copy of the book, provoking fury from some family members. One Kennedy relative told  MSNBC that the Times misrepresented the essence of the memoir, reading 15 pages and ignoring the rest of the weighty, 532-page tome.

We'll have to wait and read the book ourselves. In the meantime, the Times also reports that:

--President Kennedy was growing disenchanted with the Vietnam War but never had a chance to act on his misgivings. Briefed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren on the findings of the Warren Commission, the youngest Kennedy brother said he was satisfied with the commission's finding that a lone gunman was responsible for John Kennedy's 1963 assassination.

--Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy approached President Johnson about making him an envoy to broker peace in Vietnam. If LBJ had said yes, Ted Kennedy mused, Bobby Kennedy might not have run for president in 1968, when he was felled by an assassin's bullet.

--Teddy himself ran for president in 1980 in part out of anger at President Carter for his incremental approach to healthcare reform.

--After President Clinton confessed to an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Kennedy said he called and promised to stand by him. His ties to the Clintons weighed on him when he eventually endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008.

As for his own demons, Ted Kennedy said his religious faith helped him persevere. “I have fallen short in my life, but my faith has always brought me home,” he wrote.

The publisher, Twelve, said that the senator worked on the book over the last two years, finishing just a few weeks before his death. He relied on a diary he'd kept for 50 years, beginning with his brother John's presidential campaign in 1960, and on oral history interviews at the University of Virginia.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Kennedy is escorted from an Edgartown, Mass., courthouse after pleading guilty in 1969 to fleeing the scene of an accident. Credit: Associated Press

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Comments

[JDW]

"Chappaquiddick haunted me 'every day of my life"...

Yeah, I suppose killing a young woman might do that.

[reason]

Kennedy showed the world he was a coward at chappaquiddick. That made him a perfect representative of liberals everywhere.

[bgwalker]

I have always had a problem with the fact that a murderer was re-elected over and over again. He used his money to make a serious problem go away. He shouldn't be treated better than those that give their lives for their country.

[Angelou]

Kennedy felt bad but that didn't make him step up and confess for the crime and pay with jail time.

[Larry Lakoduk]

That he caused the death a Mary Jo Kopechne was more than "inexcusable", it was CRIMINAL and he should have gone to prison for it. Besides fitting the crime that he committed, prison time for him would have proven to the less privileged citizens of this country that there could be "equal justice for all".

[Angelou]

Since he is confessing to what he did, shouldn't he be striped off any awards, commendations, monies paid to him? We know what's going on and our children and grandchildren should be able to find out if they choose to in the future. This should not just fade out as time passes.

[specular]

Yeah, Teddy was so upset about Chappaquiddick everyday of his life it left him speechless about the subject.

What a sleezeball this guy was, and now people are making him out to be such a saint. Sure says a lot about all the liberal Americans. A girl lost her life that night and her family lost a daughter, and he never once came clean in public to at least apologize.

[sage]

humm... i wonder if he had not been rich and famous things would have been a lot different...so he is sorry, kind of late for that.. it is all about politics and the name.. what about the family of Mary Jo, and what about Mary Jo?? who knows what she went through, so just saying i am sorry i left your daughter in the car is suppose to take care of everything... i don't think so. but what you do in this life will follow you into the next..just because you leave planet earth does not mean you won't have to pay in some way.

[Steve]

The Ode to Mary Jo

For want of a shoe, a kingdom was lost.
You have heard the tale,
How a man lost his kingdom,
Because a horseshoe needed a nail.

From the Commons of Boston,
And the Cape of Cod comes now this wail,
About the tragedy of the big game hunter,
And the dainty, drowned quail.

The oracle at Delphi would have declared,
July nineteenth as a date of doom,
For then were a woman and a presidency,
Buried in a watery tomb.

It was the isle of Chappaquiddick,
They were on the way to the Ferry.
They were such an innocent pair;
A senator named Ted and a girl named Mary.

You know how the story goes,
For the want of a shoe a kingdom was lost,
And for want of a left turn,
A treacherous wooden bridge was crossed.

There were no guardrails; it veered to the left;
They fell to the right, into a tidal slip.
Only the window on the driver's side was open,
Only the driver could escape the sunken ship.

He walked back or laid in the grass;
The accounts vary of what he did then;
But for years to come, the debate
Will rage in the councils of men.

Enter Gargon and Markham,
That formidable pair:
"Leave it all to us, Teddy,
We'll get it out of there.''

You know what happens,
To the plans of mice and men.
They would gotten the car out,
Except that wreckers can't swim.

So they were trapped by time and tide.
When morning came, the car was still there;
To be seen by unbelieving millions,
When the receding tide laid its upturned wheels bare

They called in their brainpower,
Even McNamara, he of Edsel fame.
Big time politics were their forte,
The presidency the stakes in their game.

And their story was a dandy:
Not quite as wild as Mod clothes,
More like a Chappaquiddick fish net,
Stringy, and full of holes.

That the public is gullible and dumb,
Has always been the Harvard clique's belief.
The gullibility of the public is boundless,
And their stupidity is without relief.

He dove repeatedly, walked intrepidly, and swam to another island.
For a man in shock; he exercised zealously.
Too bad Edgar Allen Poe is dead.
A story like that would have aroused his jealousy.

For want of a nail, a kingdom was lost,
For want of a wrecker, a candidate was lost.
Their reason for turning right may never be known,
But, whatever the reason, the White House was the cost.

The salty wind blows across Martha's Vineyard,
The fog folds Chappaquiddick in her arms,
The senator, the fog, the tide, the wind, will never tell,
The secret of Mary Jo's fatal charms.

A nail, a shoe, a horse, a missed left turn;
These are the perils of those who would rule.
If one should look under a wooden bridge,
All they would see is a quiet tidal pool.

Through the inlet with inexorable force,
Moves the tide's shimmering sheen.
But if one should look when the light is right,
On the basin bottom lies a broken dream.

In the bay a skiff goes sailing,
Toward the Vineyard a dinghy does row.
Through the slip fans the tidal breeze,
Singing an ode to Mary Jo.

[Ugh]

Too little, too late. "Inexcusable" and "terrible decisions" indeed! I hope Mary Jo Kopechne continues to haunt him, where ever it is that he is now...

[Lonny MacDougall]

20,000 people dead.
Since Mary Jo Kopechne died trapped in that car under water at Chappaquiddick, 20,000 people have died the same way. Hundreds of thousands of people have gone into the water in their cars and lived. Not being able to get out of the car is the difference. In a word, entrapment killed all of these people. The simple ability to break the tempered side window glass could save hundreds of lives a year. Perhaps Edward Kennedy in death can bring light to a life saving idea. The idea is called "Escape Tip" has been around for a decade. It puts a small indestructible tip at the end of the seatbelt latchplate. Hit tempered glass with the "Escape Tip" and it shatters allowing everyone in the car a pathway to escape through. The government and the auto industry have been made aware of this device. How much longer must people die this way? A non-profit effort to end these unnecessary tragedies can be viewed at http://sites.google.com/site/getoutaliveorg

[Big Jim Slade]

I don't know about you, but I'm Kennedy'd out after forty years and the last few weeks. Enough is enough, and let the boys lay together in peace.

The world needs to move on from their idealism at any price philosophy, no doubt the result of not one of them ever having a "real" job and having to look at the paycheck stub.

Yes, some of the stuff they did was important, some downright stupid, but all of it in front of a camera.

Personally I'd prefer another Eisenhower instead of a Kennedy, a guy able to balanced what should be done and what can be done on a practical level. Not so flashy, but far more competent.

I'd actually support a national health plan, but not a typical Obama (a trillion here, a trillion there, let's pay off my political base first) plan. Any sensible plan would add functionality and lower cost.

But that would mean cutting out the legal fees, an Obama core constituency.

[Jester of the Apocalypse]

I bet he could have gotten some guilt off his mind if he spent 25 years in jail like he was supposed to . . .

[sharon kruk]

i remember chappaquidick very well. i went there recently, and read alot about the terrible tragedy! i lost all respect for ted kennedy, he was covered by "the good ole boys" network at that time in politics. i hope what he has said in his book is truly an honest statement of remorse.
the kochpeche family has been in hell for a long time, and i dont think they will ever truly forgive mr. kennedy.
i hear there were payoffs to the "k" family. how sad.
god bless mary jo.

[J.G. Brown]

Chappaquiddick happened because Ted Kennedy didn't want to pay the price he would have had to pay to do the right thing and get help immediately.

Interesting that he waited 40 years, until there was no price to pay for the admission, to admit this.

The more things change...